Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office has turned down a $425,000 federal grant to counter violent extremism after a wave of opposition from civil rights organizations, which said the program would target and vilify Muslims.

Garcetti’s office, which was to administer the grant after securing City Council approval, told the Department of Homeland Security Tuesday Aug. 14 that it will not accept the funding, said Alex Comisar, spokesman for the mayor.

“Unfortunately, a significant amount of misinformation has led to delays in the program that have stretched past the halfway point in the grant’s performance cycle,” he said. “That leaves too little time for the community organizations we have engaged to bring their plans to life.

“For that reason, it has become impractical to move forward.”

Comisar said the mayor will “continue exploring ways to work more closely with local organizations to get specialized services and resources to people who need help.”

“In light of the tragedy in Charlottesville and events in other places, it is especially important now that we do everything possible to work toward the day when none of our young people are at risk for falling under the sway of violent extremism,” he said.

After opponents held signs of protest and packed a City Council meeting last month, President Herb Wesson tabled a planned vote sending the matter back to the council’s committee on public safety.

Criticism

The Countering Violent Extremism initiative, which began in 2015 under the Obama administration with pilot programs in Boston, Minneapolis and Los Angeles, was blasted from the beginning by critics who saw it as a ploy to police Muslims and put them under surveillance.

Last year, several Muslim organizations rejected the program’s funds including Bayan Claremont, a private Muslim institution in Southern California, because they believed the money had been tainted by the administration’s anti-Muslim rhetoric and assumption that Muslims are more likely to engage in extremism.

In June, a coalition of civil rights and community groups including Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA), the American Civil Liberties Union and the Vigilant Love Foundation, filed a lawsuit against the city for not fully answering previous Public Records Act requests seeking information about how the grant money would be used.

They fear that the program would lead to the collection of demographic information that could then be used to target Muslim communities.

The mayor’s office has been mischaracterizing a law enforcement program as a public health program, said Laboni Hoq, staff attorney for Asian Americans Advancing Justice.

“This is a law enforcement funded program,” she said. “They can map demographic information such as race, ethnicity, area of residence and religion, and religion is a core part of it.”

Hoq said while she is pleased the city won’t take the grant, she would still want to learn about the full scope of the program and how other city departments such as the LAPD will implement the Countering Violent Extremism program. She said civil rights advocates would like to see the city also unequivocally reject the concept, which is riddled with inherent flaws.

Critics of the program say some of the indicators that are wrongly used to identify those at risk as part of such a program include having a beard, recent travel to a Muslim-majority country, speaking Urdu or Arabic, frequently attending mosque and holding certain political opinions such as support for Palestine.

But, program administrators dismissed those concerns as “misinformation” — at least as far as the initiative in Los Angeles is concerned.

“The goal is to increase resilience within communities to hate, extremism and violence,” said Joumana Silyan-Saba, Garcetti aide and the program’s policy director. “The notion that this is a law enforcement program in disguise is not factually based.”

Chosen groups

Among the groups chosen by Garcetti’s office to receive the grant were Cross Cultural Expressions, which provides mental health services to Persian, Arab, Latino, refugee and immigrant communities; Tiyya Foundation, which is headquartered in Santa Ana and serves predominantly new refugees and immigrants; and ILM Foundation in South Los Angeles, whose leadership is also Muslim-American.

Silyan-Saba said the groups that had been selected to receive the grant money serve a variety of marginalized populations other than Muslims. She also said her office had been working with Life After Hate to come up with strategies to counter white supremacy and far right extremism. However, Life After Hate, was not one of the grant recipients.

For small grassroots organizations, which would have benefited from this money, not having it is a tough blow.

“It’s a shame because this money could have helped us serve marginalized, underserved people who probably won’t get those services now,” said Mastaneh Moghadam, executive director of Cross Cultural Expressions. “Sending this money back and not providing much-needed services is a terrible idea.”

Organizations like hers routinely struggle to get money for these programs and services, Moghadam said.

“Grants for mental health programs is a big deal,” she said. “People don’t seem to understand that. Extremist ideology appeals to those who feel helpless and hopeless, to those who live in abusive relationships and come from communities where they feel powerless.”

The city and other organizations should seek funding from other sources to help communities in need, said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR-LA.

“We are extremely offended by this program that says American Muslims should get mental health services through the Department of Homeland Security’s counter-terrorism program, like we are criminals or potential terrorists,” he said. “All we’re asking (as Muslims) is to treat us like everyone else — with respect and dignity.”

Deepa Bharath covers religion for The Orange County Register and the Southern California Newspaper Group. Her work is focused on how religion, race and ethnicity shape our understanding of what it is to be American and how religion in particular helps influence public policies, laws and a region's culture. Deepa also writes about race, cultures and social justice issues. She has covered a number of other beats ranging from city government to breaking news for the Register since May 2006. She has received fellowships from the International Women's Media Foundation and the International Center for Journalists to report stories about reconciliation, counter-extremism and peace-building efforts around the world. When she is not working, she loves listening to Indian classical music and traveling with her husband and son.